These monks make a pretty good fruitcake too. They tend to sell out pretty quickly. Unfortunately I don’t care for bourbon. I usually go for dried fruit rather than the candied stuff when I make fruitcake. I had some left over one year and decided to see how long I could keep it as an experiment. Went for about seven years I think and was still edible, tasty even.
The Corsicana cakes are made by the Collin Street Bakery. They are, indeed, pecan-laden. And nary a bit of citron…
Another vote for Alton Brown’s recipe. It is so delicious, and contains no neon-glow ingredients. It’s all gorgeous dried fruit, nuts, and fresh citrus peel, with just enough batter to hold it together and soak up some liquor. I’m usually not much for fruit desserts, preferring rich chocolate goodies, but if I had to choose, I’d probably take a slice of this over chocolate cake.
Leftover fruitcake?
The words are from the English language but used together, they don’t make sense. 
;).
For the fruitcake that you kept - did you dose it with liquor or anything? Or just keep it wrapped up? or in the freezer?
I love all fruitcake. The Collin Street Bakery ones are great, and full of fresh pecans. But I also like the dreaded citron-packed fruitcakes everyone else seems to hate.
Another vote for Collin Street Bakery’s fruitcake - we get sent one every year by my mother and love the stuff. They will mail their items just about anywhere in the world, I think. Fruitcakes, which require no refrigeration, are easy, but they’ve apparently got shipping refrigerated items down, as well: We ordered a cheesecake from them a few years ago (we live in California), and it arrived just fine in a styrofoam insulating package of some sort.
There’s another outfit in the DFW area called Mary of Puddin Hill about whose fruitcakes I’ve heard good things. Never had the chance yet to try one, though.
I don’t think I’ve ever had a true fruitcake, but they look delightful! My mother always made a delicious loaf that she called “fruitcake” which in reality was an applesauce cake with candied fruit thrown in.
I sure hope she sends me some this year.
I don’t know what type of whiskey was used in the Aussie one I picked up, but it’s so good that I’d definitely think about giving the Glenfiddich cake a whirl. Seems a bit extravagant to spend 25 bucks on a fruitcake, but this one I got was $15, so maybe not too much of a leap. Some of the people who don’t like fruitcakes might change their mind by trying some of these imports. Growing up in West Texas, all there ever seemed to be were these cruddy little fruitcake bricks. You could have injured yourself if you dropped one on your foot.
This one we have is also very moist and difficult to slice without it crumbling. But eating the small moist chunks is fine.
Fruitcake is a critical part of an Aussie Christmas. I like to make mine along with a nice Christmas pudding ice cream cake.
We used to have it a lot as kids when we went camping, it kept pretty easily and was filling.
It was a very big fruitcake.
I kept it embalmed in brandy in a rubbermaid container at room temp. It was just a couple of slices really. I was curious.
I do a lot of odd things because of that actually.
You know, if you were talking about anything other than a fruitcake, I’d have to call the cops on you.
I use my own recipe and love it. Just enough batter to keep all the different dried fruits sticking together, make it a couple of weeks before Yule to let the tastes combine, pour over a drop of brandy a few days before I start slicing it and eat it with a glass of Port. Yummy!
People in Australia pretend to like lots of things (like Kiwis) but they secretly hate fruit cakes.
Lets talk Ecchelfechan tarts.
The ones from St. John’s monastery are 40 bucks each. I don’t have hard figures for what it cost to make ours this year but I’d say the ingredients are nearly 10 bucks per cake (dried fruit is pricey, ditto liquor) so 25 dollars is NOT out of line.
Another running gag is the fruitcake that gets regifted every year and never eaten.
Fruitcake is one of three foods Garfield won’t eat (the other two are raisins and snails).
(O, joy! One of my favorite topics!)
…And here, Fear Itself, you have hit upon the pivotal point:
You must make your own candied citrus peel.
I love every kind of fruitcake. When I was a teenager, I found a recipe in “The Joy of Cooking” for a blonde fruitcake – using golden raisins, dried apricots, etc. instead of regular raisins and the other dark fruit which is customary. Then you wrap it in brandy-soaked cheesecloth for a month. It was awesome!
My very favorite thing of this type, though, is the Italian panettone. I can eat it daily and never tire of it. But, you’ve **got ** to candy your own citrus peel. The difference between candied citrus peel made from lemons from your neighbor’s Meyer bush, tangerines, and grapefruit — and that day-glo stuff they have in the supermarket, is like night and day. Witness the fact that many people don’t even know what it is.
It was dead when I found it, I swear!
I don’t mind the candied citron… even tolerate the glace “cherries” which are about as far removed from real cherries as it is possible to be and not contain antimatter… but if you dislike citron, then DEFINITELY do your own candied peel. It is actually not difficult at all, just a little time consuming. I’ve got a dish of candied grapefruit peel (did NOT use that in the fruitcake, as yummy as it is it’d be too bitter), and I candied a Buddha’s Hand also, some of which DID go into the fruitcake. Actually the Buddha’s Hand was especially easy - with most other fruits you need to boil and drain the peels a couple of times to reduce bitterness, but that wasn’t needed.